Why We're Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, and Love by Trent Horn

Author:Trent Horn
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Catholic Answers Press
Published: 2017-05-20T22:00:00+00:00

IS ABUSE JUST A CATHOLIC PROBLEM?

Ernie Allen, the director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in an interview with Newsweek magazine, “We don’t see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else. I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others.”120

GETTING THE FACTS RIGHT

Most accusations of sexual abuse among priests come from incidents that took place between 1950 and 1980. At that time it was thought that the urge to commit sexual abuse could be treated with therapy, and so involving law enforcement was not always necessary. According to Dr. Monica Applewhite, who has spent more than twenty years studying abuse and how to prevent it, “These treatment-based interventions for sexual criminals [instead of incarceration] were not only enormously prevalent in the United States, but surveys of ordinary citizens showed that they were enormously popular.”121

Modern psychology has now shown, however, that sex offenders are very likely to commit more crimes in the future. That’s why the Catholic Church has taken steps to increase transparency and accountability in the area of reporting sexual abuse. The Church has created offices of safe environment and child protection that have trained millions of adults to recognize signs of abuse. Dioceses across the world have instituted zero tolerance policies that require immediate and mandatory reporting of alleged abuse to law enforcement. In 2015, Pope Francis created a special tribunal for disciplining bishops who had been negligent in their response to allegations of abuse.122

According to journalist David Gibson, “The Catholic Church may be the safest place for children. Whatever its past record, the Catholic Church in the U.S. has made unparalleled strides in educating their flock about child sexual abuse and ensuring that children are safe in Catholic environments.”123

HISTORY FULL OF SCANDALS?

The clergy abuse scandal isn’t the only event in Church history that has been misunderstood. Consider the Crusades, which were not cases of the Church trying to forcibly convert people or steal their land. According to Thomas Madden, one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, “The crusades remain today one of the most commonly misunderstood events in Western history.”124

Instead of seeking riches and conquest, the Crusaders risked life and limb to rescue Christians whose land and homes had been overrun by Muslim invaders. Even Christian pilgrims who visited the region risked their lives to worship in the Holy Land. For example, thirty years before the First Crusade, a group of 7,000 peaceful German pilgrims were viciously massacred.125 This, among other events, prompted Pope Urban II to call the First Crusade. In a speech he gave in 1095 the pope said:

Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward.

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